


The Virgin Queen

by owlinaminor



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Doctor Who Spoilers, F/M, Queen - Freeform, Spoilers, The Day of the Doctor, continuation of episode, powerful woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:12:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ll be back soon,” he promised, all those years ago, and she knew he was lying, because he had a universe to save, and she thought his goals were more important than hers.</p>
<p>“You know, Doctor,” she says now, closing her eyes and lying back, “you may have saved the universe, but I saved my country.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Virgin Queen

**Author's Note:**

> I loved The Day of the Doctor, but one thing that really annoyed me about it was the characterization of Elizabeth I. She was written the same way most female characters in Moffat-era Doctor Who have been written: flat, overemotional, and supposedly strong and clever (but only when the Doctor wasn't around to save her.) So, as a lover of British history and powerful women, I thought about Moffat's Elizabeth I for a while until I came up with an ending to her story that helped me to not hate her so much in the special. Here it is.

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, and she knows he’s lying.

She allows herself a moment to watch him go, him and his friends in that strange, little blue box, and then turns to her attendants and plasters a smile on her face.  There is work to be done: an alien invasion to lead, a painting to hide, a country to run.  All of her tasks are completed with almost inhuman precision; the zygons don’t suspect a thing.

That night, alone in her chambers with her hair loose like fire unleashed on the polished satin of her bed, she weeps for him.  She muffles her cries with a pillow, but her body – the body that killed an alien copy of herself without a second thought – shakes like a hurricane.

The first decade, she dreams of him.  There is a tiny, almost imperceptible chance that he will return for her, and she holds onto it, that rock in the churning river of her life.  She refuses countless marriage proposals (don’t they know she’s _already married_ ) and writes poetry for him in her head, poetry that she will recite to him when he returns.  She dreams of him out there, somewhere, in the past or the future, fighting to save the universe in his suit (brown as the earth) and shoes (red as the sunset), then coming back to be her king.

He doesn’t return.  She plays the events of that one perfect week with him over and over until she hates him – hates everything from his hair to his smile to the silly noise his ship makes when it flies.  He thought she was a zygon, twice.  Why didn’t she slap him for it?  She wants to slap him now, slap him until his face is raw and bleeding (like her heart.)

The second decade, she burns all of her poetry.  The paper makes a pleasant crackling sound in the fireplace as the flames reduce it to ashes.  She still rejects any and all marriage proposals she receives, because men are arrogant and untrustworthy and they _leave_.  They aren’t fit to rule a country, much less be loved by her.

She sees him, once, in Stratford-upon-Avon.  She calls for him, charges him, an entire entourage furiously stampeding toward one man in a trench coat.  He runs away.  Either he doesn’t remember her, he hasn’t met her yet, or he doesn’t want to even see her.  He looks exactly the same, and for some reason, that makes her angrier than ever.

He flies away in his blue box with another innocent girl he’s got under his spell, and she picks herself up, apologizes to her people, and walks back the other way.  She can’t let them see her cry.  (It was the confusion on his face more than anything else – the same confusion she saw right before she kissed him.)

She thinks of him less and less as time goes on.  She thinks of him saving the universe, shouting angrily at monsters and kissing some nameless other woman in celebration, and wonders how selfish she must have been, to try to keep him with her.

After all, he is a timelord, and she is only a girl.

The third decade, she blames herself.  She loved him because he didn’t treat her like a queen – he treated her like a girl, a girl of barely sixteen.  With his grin and his charm and his kisses, soft and sweet, she forgot about the country she had to rule, the people who depended on her.  She became an innocent, naive girl again, depending on others to protect her when she was perfectly capable of defending herself.  After forcing him to marry her, did she really expect him to want to stay with her?  _She_ wouldn’t want to stay with herself, not that silly, passionate girl she used to be.

She vows to never be that girl again, and maybe she’s stronger for it.  (Her armor is gilded and ceremonious but her dagger is always sharp.)

The marriage proposals still come, even though she is far past childbearing age.  She rejects them, not because of him, but because she is married to her country, her people.  England is more important than any man – it shames her that it took so long for her to realize that.

She solves the religion problem once and for all (provided her successors don’t muck it up.)  She commands her navy to defeat the Spanish Armada.  She ushers in a new age of art and culture.  She plants the seeds of an empire.  She has so much to be proud of – he is just a blip on her record, a mistake she can’t quite bring herself to forget.

They call her the Virgin Queen.  Perhaps it’s fitting, not because of her unwillingness to marry (again), but because of all that she has accomplished despite of the man who stole her heart.  She built up a country that will last for thousands of years, for people who love her more than he ever did.  She never should have married him.

After all, he is only a man, and she is a queen.

On her deathbed, she hears the sound of that curious little box, landing in her chambers.  She instructs the servants to scatter, and they do so after a moment of staring.  (Let them – a bit of unproved gossip isn’t all that bad.)

Out steps a man – still the Doctor, but not her Doctor.  His face is older and his hair is silver, but he still has that gleam of wonder and adventure in his eyes.  She hopes that never changes.

He takes her hand and kisses it softly, reverently.  “Elizabeth the First,” he says.

“Doctor,” she replies.  “You’re several decades late.”

“I’m sorry for leaving you,” he tells her, and his honesty heals something long broken.  “I mean, he’s sorry.  Your doctor.  He was always sorry, that he had to leave in such a rush, and that he wasn’t honest with you.”

She smiles.  “It’s quite alright.  I got on fine without him.   Without you.”

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised, all those years ago, and she knew he was lying, because he had a universe to save, and she thought his goals were more important than hers.

“You know, Doctor,” she says now, closing her eyes and lying back, “you may have saved the universe, but I saved my country.”


End file.
